IF ONLY PRIESTS WERE TERRORISTS

Catalyst June Issue 2013

It is only right that people as diverse as Boston Archbishop Sean O’Malley, Secretary of State John Kerry, and Rep. Keith Ellison have called on Americans not to blame all Muslims for the behavior of the two Muslim terrorists who bombed Boston. Others, however, have gone way beyond this call for restraint.

The Wall Street Journal ran a piece yesterday by Michael B. Mukasey titled, “Make No Mistake, It Was Jihad.” His point was well made. Another apt headline, this one from today’s Dallas Morning News, says, “Boston Bombing Suspect Charged; Say Religion Motivated Bombing.”

Despite the evidence, we are told by Religion Dispatches, “Don’t Blame Religion for Boston Bombings.” Akbar Ahmed from American University is confident that “Islam had nothing to do with it.” The New York Times begs us to distinguish between Al Qaeda and “Muslim extremists.” The Atlantic website ran the headline, “The Boston Bombers Were Muslim: So?” The Southern Poverty Law Center ridicules the idea that radical Muslims had anything to do with the bombings, accusing those who draw attention to this of blaming the “bogeyman.”

It’s too bad the aforementioned don’t think of accused priests the way they do accused Muslims; then we may not have as much priest-bashing as we do. It is hard not to notice that the same people who never go to bat for priests—even when they are uniformly condemned as molesters—are now all jacked up about the role Islamism plays in promoting Muslim terrorism. Indeed, they are in complete denial.

Bill Maher, who typically takes cheap shots at priests, is to be commended for taking aim at a guest who tried to equate Islam with Christianity and Judaism. If Maher gets it, why don’t the others?